Grasshoppers and Butterflies

What Happened To You?

Yes it is true.  I have been neglecting my blog for the last few weeks.  First we went on vacation.  Then when we got back I got a nasty cold and didn't feel like doing anything.  As a result of not doing anything, my house turned into a huge mess.  Plus we are full swing into the school year and homeschool takes time too.  I am happy to say that everyone is well now, my house is sort of getting back to normal, we are in a homeschool grove and I am fervently working on craft show items.  Here is one of the items I just finished up and listed on Etsy.  The craft show is in November which is sneaking up on me faster than I thought it would.  Later!

New Patterns!

I found some new patterns online a few weeks back and decided the other day to order them.  They came in today and I can't wait to try them out.  When I get a dress or something made I will post pictures of it but for now I will just show you pictures of the patterns.

 

They are soooooo cute!  Later.

Forever Organizing

Once again I have spent the majority of the weekend cleaning, organizing and purging items from my craft room that I no longer have a need for.  In some ways it feels really good but in others it disturbs me.  I don't even know how much I spent on all this stuff over the last 10 years.  But I do know that it is not worth keeping and having to find space for it if I am not going to use it!!  So, I will be spending most of the evening taking pictures of my items to sell and listing them on Etsy.  Hopefully I will be able to get rid of the majority of the items.  If not I guess somebody at Goodwill will have an awesome find!  So if you are a crafty person and interested take a look!  Have a great night!

 

Frugal Stamp Storage

Lately I have been trying to downsize and organize my craft room.  Part of that has included removing my rubber stamps from the wood blocks and putting them on cling mount.  You can purchase all sorts of fancy stamp storage and I do have a few of these but I was looking for a more economical way to store them since I have many (and I do mean many) rubber stamps.  I knew that cling mount would stick to plastic so I decided to try laminating 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock and then punching holes on the side so I can store them in a 3-ring binder.  Here is how it turned out.

This is just a few of my stamps.  I have a lot more to go.  But I am making progress and now the stamps take up a lot less room.  Plus it cost me a lot less than purchasing new stamp storage!

Anyways, over the last few days I have been working on moving my blog over to a self hosted blog powered by WordPress.  I still have a ways to go and the final transition probably won't take place until November (which is when my TypePad blog is due for renewal).  So if you want to keep an eye on my progress then check here and bookmark it for later. 

 

I'm Testing The Waters At Etsy

I have had a craft room full of stuff for a long time!!  So now I am trying my best to use what I have to make different things to try to sell/get rid of.  It is time to DOWNSIZE!  Anyways, whatever doesn't sell on Etsy we will take to the craft shows in October and November.  If you want, take a look on my sidebar on the left of my blog.  I will be adding lots of different items over the next few weeks!

With that I leave you with a couple of cute pictures.  The little neighbor girl got a new kitten and brought her over to my house.  She seems to have found refuge here...

Isn't she cute?!  At least until they get bigger...then they scratch up the furniture!

Ribbon, Lace & Trim OH MY!

While we were in Bartlesville my aunt gave me a huge bag of ribbon, lace and trim.  It had belonged to my great grandmother who loved to sew and spent a great deal of time doing so.  In fact, she used to work for CBS many years back and did a lot of sewing for them.  I was told she did sewing for shows like Red Skelton, Lucille Ball and All in the Family.  Anyways, I have had a good time going through all of it and sorting/organizing everything.  Take a look!

A lot of the packages of bias tape range in price from $.15 to $.29.  It peaked my curiosity as to how old these actually were.  With a little research (on the internet of course) I found out that these packages were from the 1930's to 1950's.  Pretty neat huh?  I wish I knew how old some of the laces were.  Oh well!  It is just fun to go through it all.

Decorated Tins

My friend Melanie came over this morning and we worked on some tins for the craft shows coming up in October and November.  I know it sounds far off but we always seem to get started too late and wind up not having enough items to sell.

This time we are doing things a little different.  We are not buying anything new to work on.  We are only using items we already have or that we get "gently used".  So far it is working out really well.  Here are some pictures of the tins we worked on today.  Please excuse any background craft clutter pictured.

We have been working on a few other things too.  Our hope is to have a whole bunch of stuff ready so we are not staying up late the night before the show!  Later!

April 26th, 2009 Recap

Just a quick summary of my day:

12:30am - Threaten little girls of Birthday Sleepover with the horrible of punishment of having to sleep in a room by themselves if I hear another peep.

4:00am - Rise and Shine for me!  Get ready to meet Running Buddies at Wal-mart at 4:50am to carpool to Memorial Marathon.  I was part of a 5-person relay team.

5:00am - Leave for Memorial Marathon

6:00am - Pictures with Running Buddies

6:30am - 1rst leg of relay starts

7:45am - My leg of relay starts.  I have no idea what time I finished.  I passed of the timing chip to the 3rd leg relay person, collected my medal and then jumped in the car with the other girls to head to the finishing point for the 3rd leg.

9:30am - 3rd leg finishes.  We picked up her medal, found some refreshments and jumped back in the car to head home.

10:30am - Arrive home, jump in shower and prepare for birthday party at Bouncin' Craze at 1:00pm.

1:00pm - 3:30pm - Bounce, bounce, slide, bounce, eat cupcakes.

3:30pm - 5:00pm - Pass out

Are you bored yet?  The rest of the evening I have just been a bum for the most part.  I did work on this:

It is a little template that holds (6) 1" round tins.  I still have a couple of more tweaks but then it will be finished.  I may post it here or I may post it in my soon to be store.  Anyways, I can barely keep my eyes open so goodnight!

What I Did On My Blogging Break

This is what I was doing over the last week.  I was working on these:

Simple and sweet invitations for my daughter's birthday party.  She is 8 years old today.  It is hard to believe!  Time goes by so quickly sometimes.

The other thing I was working on was this:

My craft room....it was a complete and total disaster area which was probably why it took a whole week to get it picked up.  But at least it's done now and I have a space to work on my crafts.  I still need to go through the closet and straighten stuff up but that will come in time.  That's it for now!

Diaper Cakes

What a title for a post huh?  Anyways, my friend Melanie makes the most amazing diaper cakes.  They are so cute!  She has made quite a few over the last couple of months and they are becoming quite popular.  Here are a few examples of the ones she has made recently:

Aren't they adorable?  She makes them in one, two and three layers.  If you are interested in ordering one you can email her at diapercakediva@cox.net.  Have a good night!